The Mental Emotional Health Blog

There is an old phrase: You never stop learning. I agree with that. Even if you feel stuck in routine, like every single day is the same, your memories and experiences continue to develop. In therapy, it sometimes happens that a client has similar sessions over a long period of time where he/she talks about the same subjects or the same events, but then the focus takes a new direction.

One possibility is that people have limits to how often they discuss something before feeling the need to change the topic. Even repetitive things build on each other. For example, I like Snickers bars so I enjoy one once in a while. If I had one daily, I’d eventually tire of them because the experience itself builds up to a certain level. (Actually my stomach would build up at the same time.)

So the question is, what is the best way that you learn? Are you an observer who sits back and takes things in, or do you need to be involved in the situation? Some learn better by hearing, some by reading or seeing, and some learn actively (kinesthetic learning) . For me, I sometimes like a combination of learning styles,  but it also depends on what I’m trying to learn. The best way for me to learn Spanish was to read, listen to my teacher, practice speaking, and writing. By comparison, when I took golf lessons a few years ago to improve my golf swing (a fun, never-ending challenge), I listened to the golf pro talk about what I needed to adjust, but not much improved until I was able to physically feel the difference in my actual swing. By the way, patience is definitely a virtue. I have so much more respect for professional golfers after I learned how much goes into developing and maintaining a productive and consistent golf swing.

So pay attention to how learning happens best for you. Then you can apply that style to whatever you want to learn, and adjust as needed.

Keep moving forward, and grow as a person!